One Seacoast Mile 

Spring

A sprinkling of yellow footprints brightens the grassy slope leading to the tip of Cape Sitka, the northernmost point of my chosen mile. Not actually footprints at all, these matted patches are native wildflowers. Called footsteps of spring, they have yellow maple-shaped leaves that lie flat beneath clusters of half-inch-high canary-colored flowers. Keeping a low profile helps this species to survive the strong winds that buffet the cape.

Stretching out to lie prone on the hillside, I become part of this plant’s ground-hugging world. Just downslope, I see another group of blossoms peeking above the grass: Menzies’ baby blue eyes. As the name suggests, these flowers are usually blue, but sometimes, like the ones growing below me, the plants produce bright white petals lined with purple dots.

Nearby, a tiny fish skeleton no more than two inches long lies in the lee of a small rock, the remains of some seabird’s sardine or anchovy catch. The hungry bird unknowingly gifted the cape’s shallow soil with a miniscule dose of growth-boosting nutrients from the sea. Dropped from the bird’s bill as it flew above the cape, the tiny fish’s flesh decomposed into the soil, where shallow roots absorbed the minerals transported from the saltwater below.

Plants with ocean-derived minerals in their cells can grow up to three times faster than those without. As this nourishment delivered on the wing accumulates bit by bit over time, organic material builds up, creating rich soil. Slowly, the rocky cape becomes meadowed and wildflowers spangle its slopes.

The water where the fish spent its brief life is part of a highly productive coastal ecosystem that owes its existence to one phenomenon: wind-driven ocean upwelling. In spring and summer, the prevailing winds come from the north and drive surface water offshore. Scientists have discovered that, in the northern hemisphere, surface waters always move to the right (west) of winds blowing in a southerly direction; this phenomenon is known as the Coriolis Effect.

Winds blow down the coast, forcing the top layers of water westward, away from the shore. Deep nutrient-rich water moves up to replace the dissipated surface water, bringing seafloor sediments enriched with nitrogen and phosphorus to the top. Here, the infusion of nutrients fuels an explosive growth of plankton and seaweed, the foundation of a marine food web that feeds tidepool creatures, schooling fish, salmon, seabirds, seals, whales and humans. Looking out to sea, I witness an upwelling in progress: a mass of brownish-green water meets the blue as the winds bestow their life-giving gifts on the nearshore waters.

Leaving the blustery cape behind, I hike down toward the rarely-visited beach at its foot. Descending along a faint trail, I find myself at the top of an extremely steep sand chute only twenty feet wide. Looking around for another route, I conclude that this precipitous slope is, indeed, the main access. Gazing downhill, I notice something else: a meandering course of animal tracks descending the narrow opening. A thicket of conifers edging the sand prevents the wind from erasing the footprints. Closer examination reveals each round track to be about two inches wide with four toes, no claw marks and three lobes on the back edge of the heel pad – a bobcat! This reclusive cat normally hunts at night but occasionally sneaks out in daylight, too. The tracks reveal nothing about the hour in which this creature prowled, but their condition indicates that they’re several days old.

Still curious about the secluded beach below, I plunge my heels in the soft sand and make a slow glissade down the unstable slope, obliterating the cat tracks as I go. Safely reaching the bottom, I scramble over driftwood pushed up by last winter’s storms and step onto firm sand several yards from the surf. No footprints blemish this wild strand; I have it all to myself, or so I think.

Walking south, I find evidence that I’m not alone: multiple pointy impressions in the sand border each side of a pencil-thin drag mark. The tracks lead me closer to the water and soon I find their maker: a northern kelp crab brought in by the waves. About three inches wide, the top of its slick brown shell forms the shape of a small shield with a large point in the front and a smaller point tipping each forward corner.

As the crab slowly ambles sideways, I watch its eight legs and two claws emboss the sand with tiny tracks while the posterior end of its shell inscribes a shallow furrow. Kelp crabs are seasonal carnivores, eating small clams and barnacles each winter and switching to an herbivorous diet of kelp and other seaweeds during the warmer months. I resist the urge to pick this one up, knowing from painful experience how hard they can pinch.

Gentle waves part around barnacled boulders as I continue south. Thousands of clam-like blue mussels wait for high tide, their shells snapped shut like calcified coin purses. Rocky towers and turrets rise above gardens of shiny seaweed. Picking my way through a stretch of basketball-sized rocks, I come upon one of the most bizarre creatures inhabiting the intertidal zone: a Pacific giant chiton. Resembling a partially deflated football, this mollusk has thick leathery skin and can grow up to a foot long. Lacking a head and eyes, it uses its muscular foot to clamp onto rocks. A flattened mouth on its underside contains tiny teeth for scraping algae from hard surfaces. To resist abrasion, the teeth are capped with magnetite, a mineral thought to be produced by some animals (sea turtles, birds, whales) to help them navigate using the Earth’s magnetic field. Although the chiton’s mineralized teeth are magnetic, it does not use this adaptation to find its way; it’s simply reinforcement for the tools needed to obtain its slimy meal.

Reaching down to touch its pebbly skin, I find that this chiton has been knocked loose from its rock, likely by a strong wave. Turning it over, I see the cantaloupe-colored foot flanked by a groove on either side, each filled with a row of rounded gills. Tucked safely in one of the grooves, a skinny white scale worm moves its head, but will not harm its slow-moving host. Instead, it forages for tube worms and organic debris as the chiton carries it around. 

Returning the chiton and its wriggling passenger to the spot where I found them, I look back to the sand chute I must scale to return to the car. It promises to be a slow breathless climb, but it’s a small price to pay for today’s exploration of the wildest part of my seacoast mile.

 

 

One Seacoast Mile

Winter

January along the Oregon Coast can be brutal. High winds slam storm after storm against the shore; pelting raindrops sting one’s face like tiny projectiles launched from afar. Calmer days bring chilly fingers of fog that reach through layers of clothing to grip one’s bones. This miserable weather torments the length of Oregon’s coastline – except for the one location where a jumble of peaks (the Klamath Mountains) stretches from 80 miles inland to meet the sea.

Here, mild spring-like weather occurs anytime high pressure builds east of the Klamaths and low pressure settles off the coast. Winds from the east blow over the mountains, where the peaks funnel them into the deep gorge holding the Chetco River. As the narrow canyon walls compress the air mass, the molecules of nitrogen, oxygen and carbon dioxide bounce off each other, creating heat. Arriving at the sea, the balmy wind pushes cooler marine air offshore and bathes the local coastline, including my chosen mile, with warmth.

Leaving the car, I hike north along an elevated trail in shirtsleeves and jeans, happy to be free of confining sweaters and raingear. A wall of close-growing Sitka spruce trees borders the uphill side of the trail. Spiky needles brush my arm as I step on reddish-colored cones littering the ground. Below me, a moorland cloaked in low shrubs and coarse grasses sweeps 300 yards down to the shore. To the south, Cape Tolowa’s mesa-like profile stretches seaward to dip and then rise again to a rounded hump hunching above the surf. 

At the north end of my chosen mile, Cape Sitka towers above a narrow strip of dark sand. Just offshore, jagged sea stacks rise from the water like a giant carnivore’s canine teeth; gentle waves break around them.

One hundred yards beyond the outermost sea stack, a heart-shaped plume of steam rises a dozen feet above the ocean’s surface, the tell-tale silhouette of a gray whale’s spout. As the whale exhales air through twin blowholes on its head, its warm breath condenses to create a misty heart that vanishes almost immediately. I glance at my watch, timing the rhythm of its breathing. It disappears underwater for 30 seconds, then surfaces to exhale and quickly draw in its next breath. The whale repeats the pattern three times before arching its knuckled back and thrusting its tail flukes above water to propel it into a deeper dive.

This huge creature, 45 feet long at maturity, is taking part in the longest mammal migration on Earth. Each winter, thousands of its kind swim from Alaska to Baja, Mexico, to mate or give birth in lagoons along the peninsula’s Pacific shore. Come spring, gray whales return to their nutrient-rich Arctic feeding grounds, completing a 10,000-mile round trip. Thrilled by my luck in witnessing the whale’s brief appearance, I hike on.

An unmarked side path leads me down the open slope toward a tiny beach curving below Cape Tolowa. I wade through waist-high grasses crowding the path; coyote bush, an evergreen shrub with gray-green leaves above a skeleton of bare branches, dots the open hillside. One of the bushes erupts in a rattling chirrrr as I pass by. I freeze in my tracks, scanning the twiggy maze for the call’s source. Chirrrr – a second call emanates from a neighboring bush. Standing perfectly still for several minutes, I finally spot a pair of Wrentits – tiny gray-brown birds with rounded wings and upturned tails. They hop from branch to branch, foraging for insects and spiders, while concealed from the view of hungry raptors by the cover of leaves crowning each bush.

Wrentit pairs stay together year-round, uncommon behavior for songbirds. Mates for life, they pair up shortly after learning to fly and establish their territory within 1200 feet of the nests from which each bird fledged.

Standing motionless in the birds’ tiny world, I can’t help but compare them with the gray whale that I saw just a few minutes ago. One creature fits in a teacup, the other is as long as a school bus. One spends its entire life within a territory no larger than a city block, the other travels 10,000 miles every year. Despite vast differences between coastal bird and marine mammal, each must do two things to survive: eat and reproduce. Eating ensures survival as an individual, reproducing ensures survival as a species. I leave the little birds to their thicket and scramble down to the beach.

A weathered 20-foot western red cedar log rests on cobbles covering the landward side of the beach. Two feet in diameter at its widest, this stranded tree once graced the banks of a coastal stream. Likely toppled in a storm, it began its tortuous journey downstream to the sea, where waves bashed it against boulders, fuzzing its fibrous bark and splintering its brick-colored heartwood. I lean down and sniff the moist log; the spice of cedar and the tang of saltwater mix in a rich distillation of forest and sea.

Boulders exposed by low tide shelter bunches of red and green seaweed in small pools. I linger near a knotted heap of slimy vegetation on the sand. Ripped from seafloor rocks by powerful waves, these thick strands of kelp bring to mind a giant helping of briny spaghetti. Until very recently they were part of the vast underwater kelp forest growing just offshore. Beach-bound humans can only glimpse its canopy; hidden below the surface, countless creatures seek food and shelter in this undersea jungle.

Continuing south on the beach, I find a white finger-sized tube lying on the sand; one end of the tube is open and the other closed. Called a sea pickle, it’s a bizarre lifeform normally found off tropical shores in the South Pacific. Dozens of  bumps cover its rubbery surface, each a small organism in a tightly joined colony of multiple individuals. Free floaters, these colonies, also called pyrosomes, feed by filtering plankton in deep water of the open ocean. Southern storms occasionally push them thousands of miles north to wash up along the west coast of North America.

As I study this strange pickle-shaped creature in my hand, I think about where I am. I’m not just standing on a small beach on the Oregon Coast; I’m at the edge of a biome that covers 70% of our planet. Geographers recognize five distinct oceans on Earth: Pacific, Atlantic, Indian, Southern and Arctic. In reality there are no rigid boundaries: strong currents swirl, stir and share the waters between all oceans, creating a continuous body of water across the globe. The liquid connectedness of the ocean biome makes neighbors of all of its inhabitants, each residing in a worldwide saltwater community. The seemingly alien sea pickle washed ashore on my tiny beach is really no foreigner at all, but rather just another resident in a constantly moving global ocean.

Reaching the foot of Cape Tolowa, I scramble up an embankment and follow a deer trail that joins the main trail at the top. There, a wooden post lets hikers know they’re on the long-distance route called the Oregon Coast Trail, which traces the entire length of our coastline. I’ll leave a trek like that to more ambitious hikers and be content to explore my single mile slowly, one intimate step at a time, witnessing the wonders of everything from Wrentits to whales along the way.

 

One Seacoast Mile 

The Place

One Seacoast Mile

One mile: an elite runner covers the distance in about four minutes; cars going at freeway speeds travel it in less than 60 seconds. Many people think of a mile only in terms of how fast they can traverse it. As a naturalist, I don’t always view a mile as something to put behind me quickly. While hiking over captivating terrain, I consider one mile to be a distance to tarry over, to investigate, to savor – especially if it’s a seacoast mile.

The Oregon Coast, one of the most geologically complex and biologically diverse coastlines on the planet, spans more than 360 miles of beaches, capes, dunes and sea cliffs hugging the North Pacific. My chosen mile lies on the southern coast, not far from the California border. Bookended by meadow-covered capes, my little stretch of shoreline follows an irregular path between the two promontories. From Cape Tolowa at its southern end, the ribbon of shore curls around a jumble of dark rocks, caresses a small sandy beach, slides by an eroded sea stack still connected to the shore and crimps the rough edge of three bouldery coves, each backed by a tangle of driftwood logs. From there it traces the curving crescent of another tiny beach to arrive at the foot of Cape Sitka, where each wave rasps its erosive tongue against a rocky cliff.

My mile is part of a coastal stretch that owes its ruggedness to an ancient geological past. The rock formations in this area were once part of the ocean floor in a subtropical sea. Back then, as North America began to move westward, it slowly collided with the oceanic crustal plate, pushing up the mountain range known today as the Klamath Mountains. The collision between the plates folded and faulted the seafloor slab, then pushed it underneath the continental plate. Over time a succession of slabs descended below the edge of the continent, one under the other, like tilted slices of bread. Heat and pressure transformed these layers into rocks of varying hardness. Millions of years of wave and wind action removed the softer rock to reveal the resistant headlands, scoured inlets and ragged shore visible today.

This dramatic topography forms the setting in which coastal organisms of all kinds conduct the business of survival. Windblown thickets hugging the capes’ lower slopes shelter songbirds and black-tailed deer. Flattened headland summits support grasses and wildflowers that feed wary rodents who sustain raptorial hunters patrolling overhead. Seabirds nest on cliff-face ledges while seals and sea lions haul out to rest on nearshore rocks rising above the water. Where the ocean deepens, gray whales navigate by the sound of the waves hitting the shore as they swim by twice a year in the longest mammal migration on Earth, a round-trip journey of 10,000 miles.  

Though no longer than a quarter mile, each pocket beach within my chosen reach of shoreline hides countless invertebrates who spend their entire lives buried in the sand. Clumps of kelp and eelgrass stranded on the beach provide food and shelter to beach hoppers, tiny crustaceans resembling fleas. Shorebirds probe the sand and seaweed with long beaks in search of tasty morsels. Meanwhile, tidepools protected by erosion-resistant boulders harbor sea stars, anemones, crabs, sea slugs and numerous other creatures inhabiting the intertidal zone, a place where the ocean’s ebb and flow blur the boundary between terrestrial and marine habitats.

This single mile will keep me occupied a long while. I’ll explore it at an easy pace, investigating slowly and deeply. It’s only one mile, but it holds much that is measureless and vast.

Note: Cape Tolowa and Cape Sitka are fictitious names that I created to protect these infrequently visited sites from increased human impacts. Readers may recognize these places from photos, but I won't reveal any more about their actual locations.

Last Entry in this First Series

Within One Watershed:

Essays from Hackleman Creek

Part 3

The Lake

Fall

An autumn breeze gently lifts needled boughs as I follow a faint path through an old-growth forest just above the dry lakebed. My plan is to descend to the seasonal meadow and walk west until I reach water, where I hope to spot Hackleman cutthroat trout, the genetically isolated population that was cut off from its kin 3000 years ago when a lava flow blocked this valley. For now, though, I slow my pace to enjoy the silent company of conifers.

Moss carpets fallen logs and drapes over tree branches; splintered sunbeams illuminate the trail as it rounds a bend, creating a scene like a Renaissance master’s depiction of divine light. Walking past a fallen tree, I spy what looks like a handful of lavender Easter eggs on the forest floor. A second look reveals that they’re actually freshly sprouted mushrooms the color of lilacs. They’re called gassy webcaps, an unfortunate name for these beauties.

Kneeling near one of the fungi, I take a closer look. It stands about three inches tall, with a lustrous round cap whose surface is silky smooth. Using a hand mirror, I examine the cap’s underside, where the remains of a fragile cobwebby veil cover thin flap-like gills. These gills bear the mushroom’s tiny primitive seed-like structures, called spores. The veil protects the gills while they develop and then breaks as the webcap grows. When the time is right the gills will release the spores for the wind to disperse, spawning the next crop of webcaps.

These fungal fruiting bodies add more than color to the landscape; they are an integral part of the forest’s health. Each fungus grows from tiny rootlets in the soil. These thin hair-like filaments form part of a huge web of gauzy fibers that can spread for several acres underground. Some of the tiny threads wrap themselves around tree roots and form a bond that benefits both tree and fungus. The mushroom absorbs water and minerals from the soil and shares them with the tree via the roots. In return, the tree provides photosynthesized sugar as sustenance for the fungus; each organism helps its partner. Without each other, fungus and tree would struggle to survive. A single tree in this forest could have more than a dozen fungal partners; nutrients can even travel from one tree to several others through this underground network. I look up to a giant Douglas-fir that took root two centuries ago and then down to the purple webcap at its feet; scientists have only begun to understand their hidden connections within the last twenty years.

Bending to tie a loose bootlace, I notice a hard hoof-like growth on the end of a rapidly decomposing log. I’ve found a bracket fungus called a red-belted conk. It secretes tiny water droplets that hang like jewels from its rounded edge. Woody fungi like this are crucial recyclers in the forest. Their thin filaments grow into the log’s moist wood and release enzymes that break down organic material into simple compounds. As the log slowly crumbles into the duff, essential nutrients like nitrogen and phosphorous return to the soil to nourish newly sprouted plants and trees.

Stepping around an old tree snag, I spot what looks like a fossilized biscuit at eye-level on the trunk. Chalky white on top with tannish layers below, this fungus, called agarikon, is six inches long and three inches wide. The ancient Greeks used this species to treat tuberculosis, while Indigenous peoples of the Northwest prized it for its spiritual, supernatural and healing powers. Today, medical researchers study agarikon for its antibacterial and antiviral properties. It’s a treat to have such a close look at this mysterious life form, not often seen and rarely found growing this close to the ground. I gently tap it and then click a few photos.

Hiking on, I head down a gentle slope and wade into thick sedges mantling the dry lakebed; dew covers their wide leaf blades and soaks my pants up to the knees. Finding a waterless streambed, my boot prints join the two-toed tracks of deer and elk in the cindery channel; apparently, I’m not the only one who seeks the path of least resistance.

Basalt boulders at the lakebed’s edge bear a horizontal line showing the high-water mark like a bathtub ring. If I were standing here during spring’s full pool, the water’s surface would be just above my head. A leafy curtain of red and orange stands just above the jumbled lava rocks: vine maple bushes, named for their twisting tangled branches, have transformed the slope into a radiant watercolor painting. These brilliant hues appear each year as daylight hours decrease and the trees prepare to shed their leaves before becoming dormant for the winter.

The dry creek bed leads me to an elk trail that winds through a head-high thicket of willow trees. Near the willows I find trampled grass where the huge animals bedded down; I notice branches rubbed bare by antlers. Sidestepping fresh scat, I expect to run into the herd at any moment, but they’ve moved on.

Still following the elk trail, I near the head of the fjord-like meadow, where a still-flowing Hackleman Creek feeds the narrowed lakebed. Hopping from one cobbled side to the other, I make my way upstream. Deepening pools hold finger-length fish skittering to hide beneath undercut banks; they disappear too quickly for me to identify.

I clamber up a muddy embankment eroded by countless elk hooves to arrive above a quiet pool, about three feet deep; just upstream, the creek bounces over a pair of shallow riffles before it slips into the deeper water. Taking a seat on an old log, I study the stream. Movement draws my eyes to an eight-inch trout waiting near the bottom. Every few minutes it zips to the surface to catch an insect carried by the current. The pool, this trout’s place of refuge, will provide it with food and cover while it bides its time, waiting for the lake to fill again. Is it the species I seek – a Hackleman cutthroat trout? Watching it repeatedly rise to the surface and return to the deepest part of the pool, I notice its green skin speckled with small black dots. Each time it rises, I try to spot the two red slash marks on the lower jaw that are the telltale markings of all cutthroat trout. Finally, I give up and, instead of trying to identify exactly what it is, I simply admire who it is.

This small aquatic being is perfectly designed for its fluvial life. Its streamlined body and mucous-covered skin enable it to move through the water with ease. A stiff tail and pectoral fins provide it with momentum, lift, and the ability to steer and stop its body. Eyes positioned high on its head allow it to spot predators approaching from above, while color vision enables it to recognize prey drifting in the flow. Sensory neurons within lateral lines running along each side of its body detect the smallest vibrations in the water emanating from either predator or prey.

I sit transfixed as the little trout slowly moves its tail from side to side to remain stationary in the gentle current. When something of interest floats above, a quick thrust of the tail propels the fish to the surface, where it engulfs the tidbit in its mouth, then turns and descends again to deeper water.

Eventually the amber light of late afternoon signals that it’s time to head back. As I return the way I came, my thoughts turn to everything I’ve seen in twelve months of exploring the Hackleman watershed. Having witnessed the rich complexity of the watershed’s uplands, valley and seasonal lake, I feel fiercely protective of this place.  My Hackleman year has forged a much stronger commitment to educating others about the fragility of all watersheds.

Next: It’s time to explore new environs as I travel to the Oregon Coast to focus on one mile of its magnificent shoreline. 

 

 Within One Watershed:

Essays from Hackleman Creek

Part 3

The Lake

Summer

For three millennia the waters of Hackleman Creek have followed a slow rhythm of pooling and draining in Fish Lake: filling the lakebed in April and emptying it to reveal a verdant meadow in early July. But now the pattern has changed; the undeniable evidence lies before our trio of hikers. The second week of June has just ended, August-like temperatures bear down on us and the lake is completely gone. Unusually warm spring temperatures depleted a snowpack already diminished by less-than-normal winter snowfall; the meltwater briefly filled the lake, but the porous lava sucked it dry sooner than ever before.

Grass-like sedges have sprouted in thick bunches on the lakebed. As their underground stems, called rhizomes, spread and produce new shoots, the clumps will thicken and join to carpet the ground in green, creating cover and forage for terrestrial insects, mammals and birds.

For some organisms, however, the meadow’s premature birth brings early death. As we follow a dry channel that curves across the lakebed between sedge-lined banks, in lieu of the usual shallow flow or lingering puddles we see dried mud cracking in the sun and countless dead case-maker caddisfly larvae. After hatching in water, these macroinvertebrates become miniscule stonemasons, each constructing a rigid case around itself made of tiny rocks bonded by silk excreted from glands near its mouth. On the dried-up lakebed, these cases no longer protect the soft larvae as they were intended; instead, they’ve become pebbly caskets holding desiccated corpses. The creatures’ aquatic habitat vanished way too early, depriving them of a chance to grow, pupate underwater and emerge as free-flying adults.

We follow the dry watercourse west, hoping to find moisture. After 200 yards we see the stagnant remains of a stream. Hundreds of caddisfly and mayfly larvae crowd the small pools, packed together like New Year’s revelers in Times Square. But these little creatures aren’t celebrating; caddisfly larvae pile atop one another in the confined space while the mayfly nymphs dart back and forth, bumping into each other as they frantically search for deeper, cooler water. Cramming into these shrinking pools bought these creatures a little time but, ultimately, they face the same fate as the dead ones we saw earlier.

Moving farther upstream, we eventually find a flowing creek bisecting the wide meadow. Crayfish patrol the bottom and a garter snake slithers through sedges, emerging in the shallows, a bright yellow dorsal stripe running down the length of its black body. Here, young caddisfly and mayfly larvae appear to be thriving in uncrowded conditions.

Working our way slowly along the water’s edge, we spot a large salamander, about eight inches long, lolling in the stream. Its marbled brown skin, thick legs and wide head indicate it’s a pacific giant salamander. Creeping closer, we see its vertically flattened tail and notice short fuzzy gills extending from each side of its head.

Unusual creatures, pacific giant salamanders can grow to be a foot long, and have been known to bark when disturbed. A juvenile will spend two to three years in its  aquatic form, then metamorphose into a terrestrial adult with internal lungs replacing its external gills. Each secretive adult spends most of its time hidden under logs or rocks within 200 yards of its natal stream.

In a strange evolutionary twist, some pacific giant salamanders remain in their juvenile aquatic form their entire lives. This baby-like appearance is misleading, though, as they are able to mate and reproduce.

Resisting the urge to catch this creature, I kneel in the hot sun and ponder its fate. If it’s the type that develops into a terrestrial adult, will the water linger long enough for it to complete its metamorphosis? If it keeps its gilled aquatic form into adulthood, will it be able to move upstream when this part of the creek runs dry? The odds seem stacked against it.

As we slowly head back, I realize that in our search for water, we’ve been looking down all afternoon. Lifting my gaze, I take in the larger scene: the peaked roof of a century-old Forest Service cabin rises above a hill overlooking the meadow. A winged shadow skims across the green as a warm updraft carries a soaring Turkey Vulture in slow circles. Old cottonwoods stand sentinel in the east as the breeze flips each individual leaf, alternately revealing dark green on the upper side and shimmering silver below. Hidden in this idyllic scene is the sad truth that, for some aquatic creatures, summer has come too soon. Their demise is a somber prelude to what may lie ahead for this small watershed and the planet as a whole.

 

Within One Watershed:

Essays from Hackleman Creek 

Part 3

The Lake

Spring

Newly leafed cottonwood trees tower overhead as small waves lap at my feet. A warm mid-May breeze ripples Fish Lake, brimming with spring runoff. Its main pool, at least a half mile wide, narrows to a slender fjord and curves around a bend out of sight. Snow melting from the Hackleman watershed’s uplands has once again filled the lake, but not for long.

Three thousand years ago, lava oozed out of Nash Crater and flowed three and a half miles to block the ancestral valley of Hackleman Creek. This basalt barrier now briefly impounds the creek’s flow each year. Gradually, as spring gives way to summer, the inrush of snowmelt will slow and the remaining water will seep through the porous lakebed, shrinking the lake until it vanishes altogether.

Walking along the eastern shore, I spot two chartreuse heart-shaped leaves floating on the water’s surface; they seem to glow with green energy. These new leaves fell, perhaps in a strong gust this morning, from one of the cottonwood limbs hanging over the lake. Below them, curling and clumping on the soil beneath the shallow water, are last season’s fallen brown leaves. This layer of decomposing foliage will nourish meadow plants when they sprout after the meltwater disappears.

Turning away from the shore, I head into the narrow cottonwood forest hugging this end of the lake. The breeze carries a honeyed aroma, reminiscent of a sun-warmed beehive, emanating from thousands of freshly unfurled leaves above me.

Each newly emerged cottonwood leaf is covered with a sweet tacky resin that protects the tender leaves from hungry bugs. Honeybees collect this cottonwood glue and use it in the hive to seal out insect invaders and disease-causing microbes. Solitary bees use it to line small cavities where they lay eggs. I look down to see my boots adorned with resinous leaf bud scales that have fallen after bud burst.

The sweet-smelling leaves fluttering all around me formed as tightly-packed buds last summer and spent the cold winter months wrapped inside protective bud scales like those gummed to the soles of my boots. After the appropriate amount of time chilling in dormancy (which varies by tree species), growth inhibitors within the nascent leaves’ inactive cells began to break down. As temperatures rose and daylight lengthened, hormones kick-started photosynthesis, resulting in the riot of green above me.

Moving on, I come to several huge cottonwoods, each about four feet in diameter. A burly root reaches up from beneath the moist soil, reminding me that most of a tree’s workings take place out of sight. Beneath my feet countless tree roots draw in vast volumes of water from the soil. I lean against a gray trunk, furrowed with age. As this cottonwood’s roots soak up moisture, the vascular tissue in its inner bark pulls as much as 200 gallons of water up through the tree to its leaves each day. The leaves use most of the water to convert sunlight into food for the tree. Microscopic pores on each leaf transpire the remaining water as vapor into the atmosphere. This process hastens the annual drawdown of Fish Lake. When the last of the lake’s water disappears, cottonwood tap roots will strain to reach water trapped in underground pockets within the volcanic bedrock.

Paralleling the south shore, I watch two kayakers glide across the lake, floating above an area where, in a manner of weeks, black-tailed deer will leave pointed tracks in the mud as they nibble fresh grasses covering the lakebed.

Stopping for a sip from my water bottle, I sit on a large rock at the edge of the trees above the lakeshore. Looking out across the water, I notice my sole companion: a chubby little duck floating in the middle of the lake. Its chocolate-brown head, gray back and steep forehead confirm that it’s a female Barrow’s Goldeneye. I watch as she swims in small circles, repeatedly diving and surfacing. Each dive launches a new set of concentric ripples across the surface. Her hungry search for aquatic tidbits creates a moving piece of monochromatic line art on a liquid canvas.

Soon another bird paddles into view beyond the circling goldeneye. Looking through binoculars, I notice a dagger-sharp bill, smooth black head, black and white necklace and checkered back – it’s a migrating Common Loon pausing for a break on its journey to Canadian breeding grounds. As it slowly turns to show its profile, I see water beading up on the sleek dark feathers surrounding a ruby-colored eye. Scientists disagree about the purpose of the brilliantly colored eyes: some say it helps the loon see underwater when diving for fish, others maintain the coloration is a visual display for attracting a mate.

The loon floats low in the water as the goldeneye continues to circle and dive. These avian companions are transients on an ephemeral lake slowly draining away beneath them. I wonder how soon the lake will vanish this year . . . and the next . . . and the year after that. Because of the changing climate, it may eventually disappear forever.

Within One Watershed:

Essays from Hackleman Creek 

Part 3

The Lake

Winter

Wet snow sticks to our snowshoes like clumps of mashed potatoes as my friend and I make our way south toward Fish Lake, the final destination for the waters of Hackleman Creek. Three days of February rain have saturated the snow, slowing our pace to a determined plod. Every few minutes I stop and bang my ski poles against the sides of my snowshoes to release the clinging white lumps; the clanging sound reverberates through the dripping forest. If today’s clear skies hold overnight, the temperature will drop and the snow will re-freeze, creating what many Northwest snow-lovers call Cascade concrete. For now, though, the surface is soft and sticky underfoot.

These rain-on-snow events are common in the Cascade Mountains thanks to the Pacific Ocean. Maritime mountains like the Cascades owe their snowpack to storms rolling in off the ocean. But the precipitation sent by the sea can be a mixed blessing, alternately falling as snow and rain as ocean-moderated temperatures fluctuate frequently.

Slowly moving farther into the forest, we spot the familiar pattern of snowshoe hare tracks. Our noisy approach probably startled the hare as it foraged on conifer twigs and needles. The hare’s front feet left two small tracks, one slightly ahead of the other, while the hind feet left two larger tracks, side by side, in a position ahead of the front tracks. As a snowshoe hare bounds across the snow, its front feet land first and then lift off while the larger hind feet swing forward to land ahead of the spot where the front feet touched the snow; the result is the instantly recognizable triangular pattern. The tracks cross our route and disappear into a thicket of young trees.

A snowshoe hare can spread the toes on its hind feet up to four inches wide, making them like furry snowshoes that keep it atop the snow, much like our aluminum and plastic snowshoes keep us on the surface. While snowshoes allow winter recreation for humans, they can mean the difference between life and death for a hare. This adaptation enables it to flee pursuing predators like coyotes or bobcats, who sink into the snow. Once the hare finds cover, its snow-colored fur blends in with the surroundings, rendering it nearly invisible. Come summer, tannish-brown fur replaces its winter white coat.

Deeper in the forest, we stop to soak in the stillness. Thousands of water droplets sparkle on the trees. I focus on a single liquid pendant clinging to a Douglas-fir needle; it’s in no hurry to meet the ground. As I watch the drop finally give in to gravity and fall to the snow, I think about how it got here.

Its freefall from a mid-level cloud took no more than four minutes. Before that it may have spent years sloshing around in the sea. Maybe it passed through the gaping mouth of a basking shark or rinsed the salty rim of an orca’s blowhole. Solar heating lifted it into the atmosphere where it condensed into a cloud; warm ocean wind pushed the freighted cloud, along with others, a hundred miles east to the windward slope of the Cascades, turning raindrops loose to drench this forest. Tonight, it will likely become an ice crystal consolidated in the snowpack. Later, spring’s warmth will send it on a short trip to Fish Lake in snowmelt currents. There, it may trickle through porous volcanic soil to enter the neighboring Clear Lake basin via underground passage or evaporate from the lake in summer’s heat. This one raindrop is on an eternal journey in the endless cycle of all water on this wet planet.

Moving on, we hear a pair of honking Canada Geese flying above the trees, signaling our proximity to the lake, which drains annually to lie as a meadow for part of the year. Will it be a full lake now or a snow-covered clearing? In a few hundred yards, we have our answer.

Descending an easy slope, we pass through an opening in an old split-rail fence left over from cattle grazing days; ahead lies the lakebed covered neither with water nor snow. Instead, a slow stream winds silently through an expanse of brown grass and dried sedges. In spots, the water spills over the streambanks to form shallow ponds before returning to its narrow course. Foot-wide holes in the dry parts of the lakebed reveal the faint gurgle of water flowing underground. On the lake’s south side, slushy water stretches to meet the shore where a thin layer of snow covers the ground. Not cold enough to freeze solid or hold a deep mantle of snow, not warm enough to fill to full pool, the lakebed lies in an in-between state, waiting.

Tall cottonwoods stand in quiescence along the north shore; their branches point to the sky like naked fingers, having dropped their heart-shaped leaves last autumn to prevent damage from foliar frostbite. They, too, are waiting. Deep beneath their furrowed bark, a complex process moves water from inside living cells to the tiny spaces surrounding them. Concentrated sugars fill the cells to act as antifreeze during this time of dormancy. For this part-time lake and its bordering cottonwood trees, life has been put on hold for now. In a few short months, spring will return - and so will I.